Top Paul Engle Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Paul Engle Biography

Paul Engle (October 12, 1908 – March 22, 1991), noted American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He is perhaps best remembered as the long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and as founder of the International Writing Program (IWP), both at the University of Iowa.

Read about Paul Engle in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Paul Engle Quotes

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that's where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.

Horse, Children, Air, Smell, Horses

I knew about holiness, never having missed a Sunday-school class since I started at four years. But if Jews were also religious, how could our neighbor with the grease-grimy shirt use the word 'damn' about them?

Missed, Religious, School, Sunday, Use

Human life is too difficult for people.

Difficult, Human, Human Life, Life Is, People

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the "N th" power.

Ordinary, Poetry, Power, Reading Poetry, Tough Skin

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

Christmas, Mother, Memories, Sharpest, Making, Settled

Touch was important. The evening of the Third of July we would go around the neighborhood and look at the fireworks others had bought, taking them out of the brown paper sack and handling them cautiously as if they were precious stones. There was envy when we saw sacks with more in them than we had.

July, Precious Stones, Envy, Look, Sacks, Precious

For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.

Summer, Philosophy, Vacation, Language, French

There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.

Congenial, Hollywood, Honorable, New York, Two, Writing

Writing is like this -- you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.

Forth, Meaning, Police, Thinking, Water, Writing

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

Writing, Rewriting, Rewritten

I wanted to write poetry almost a little more than I wanted to eat.

Writing, Littles, Wanted, Eat, Poetry, Write

I have lectured at Town Hall N. Y. , The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.

Illinois, Yale, Library, Harvard, Michigan, Indiana

I can still remember the feel in my hand of that most wonderful American coin ever minted, a nickel with a buffalo on one side and the head of an Indian on the other. That nickel was a daily proof of our country's past. Bring it back!

Back, Country, Hands, Indian, Past, Proof

The corncob was the central object of my life. My father was a horse handler, first trotting and pacing horses, then coach horses, then work horses, finally saddle horses. I grew up around, on, and under horses, fed them, shoveled their manure, emptied the mangers of corncobs.

Horse, Father, Firsts, Manure, Corncobs, Mangers

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.

Horse, House, Automobile, Automobiles, Bought

Our small ears never had such a workout as on the Fourth of July, hearing not only our own bursting crackers but also those of our friends, and often the boom of homemade cannon shot off by daring boys of 16 years, ready to lose a hand if it blew up.

Workout, Boys, July, Fourth, Bursting

The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words.

Horse, Writing, Years, Clashed, Poems

Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.

Vision, Bills, Paid, See, Practicality

I grew up in the prolonged survival of the great age of the horse, with harness and saddle and sleigh bells and horse pictures, not as antiques but the facts of our lives.

Age, Horse, Sleigh, Survival

Soldiers of the American Revolution fought that 18th century war with heavy muskets. In the early 20th century, we kids fought it every Fourth of July not only with exploding powder and shimmering flares, but with all of our senses.

American, Exploding, Flares, July, Kids, War

1